


Red Letter Day

by EvilMuffins



Category: Little Red Riding Hood (Fairy Tale), Rotkäppchen | Little Red Riding Hood (Fairy Tale)
Genre: Eventual Happy Ending, F/F, Fairy Tale Retellings, Girls Kissing, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-22
Updated: 2016-09-22
Packaged: 2018-08-08 04:47:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7743928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EvilMuffins/pseuds/EvilMuffins
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She returned the next morning, and the next, always knocking, always with the same horrific offer on her lips.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Red Letter Day

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ozsaur](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ozsaur/gifts).



> I took a little inspiration from German folk tellings that didn't make it into Grimm's, as well as the actual Grimm's tale. Hope you enjoy!

 

 _‘_ _I felt that if I could have married Little Red Riding Hood, I should have known perfect bliss’_

\- Charles Dickens

 

 

Once upon a time, in a tiny cabin nestled deep in the woods, there lived a wolf.

And on this day, the wolf in question tugged a heavy blanket up over her head, as the fur covering her ears and tail stood on end.

“ _Hellloooo in there_! Miss Wolf!” Sounded a chipper voice from outside, followed by another volley of knocks on the door.

It was the fourth time this week. Ignoring her didn’t seem to help, but it was the only thing Fenril could think to do at this point. She certainly hadn’t picked up and moved out to a cabin in the brambles because she had been harboring a craving for social interaction.

The voice called out again, “I brought breakfast!”

Fenril’s ears attempted to twitch, but found their motion hindered by the quilt pulled over them. She pulled it down, freeing her head.

“Leave it there, on the step!” she snarled.

“Nooooope! You have to let me in, or you can’t have any! I’ll eat it alllll by myself! Hooo boy, look at allll this meat!”

Fenril stumbled out of bed, foot tangling in the sheets causing her to go crashing down to the floor.

“Hey, are you okay in there?”

Did she have her ear pressed right to the keyhole? Fenril wondered as she picked herself up, kicking the sheet aside.

The door creaked open. “Come on.”

A whirlwind of red took up her invitation, flying though the doorway, and setting straight to work.

Moments later, the wolf found herself seated at her own little kitchenette table, food laid out upon it, as if everything had been suddenly dropped there by a dinner-fairy (Fenril was no stranger to Dinner Fairy visits- the last time they had infested the place, there had been such an excess of food that Fenril had actually had to _bring some to her neighbors_ \- an experience she was not keen on repeating any time soon).

Fenril prodded at the meat before her, warm juices running out of it across the platter. “Aren’t you going to eat anything?”

Although she had heard somewhere or other (likely from the Color Magic Theory course in her Mage College correspondence lessons, though damned if she could remember a single other fact from it, it had been so long ago) that the color red should whet the appetite, at the moment it was making her stomach turn in upon itself instead.

It wasn’t that she disliked the color, rather, she didn’t think much of it one way or another on an average day. However, now that she felt the concentrated stare of the hooded figured seated across the table burning into her as she prepared to eat, she found herself beginning to form an opinion on the hue fairly quickly.

“No, no. I’m fine!” the red-clad girl replied with a smile, resting her chin upon her interlocked hands. “Please dig in!”

Any wolf that could resist fresh meat laid out before her like this for very long a time would likely be a candidate for sainthood.

After a bit of grumbling and uncomfortable glances across the table, the meal was soon polished off.

“Thank you,” the wolf mumbled, patting at her lip with a napkin. Just because she was a hermit, didn’t mean that manners should go out the window, after all.

“You’re welcome,” the girl beamed, hands suddenly on the table as she leant across it, as far her petite frame would allow, long, dark braids dangling over the worn wood.

It was like something out of a bad romance novel (don’t think she hadn’t read them, what else would she do while keeping herself locked away in the cabin for days on end?)- the girl, hood down now, tugging open her cream-colored collar to reveal skin of still a lighter pale as she posed.

What had the girl said as she had done it? _“Are you ready for dessert?”_ or _“How about some dessert?”_ or even something similar to _“Are you just going to dessert me like this?”_ Whatever the exact turn of phrase, Fenril pushed herself away from the table, chair toppling backward with a clatter.

The fur on her tail and ears went all to chimney brush while she declared, “I’m not some _undead vampire_. I don’t want your neck, you…”

“What _do_ you want? You can have the blouse, you know. It’s real silk; Grandmother gave it to me. I’ll give you anything you’d like, just so long as you eat me,” The girl offered eagerly.

The wolf turned away, her claws digging into her arms as she hugged them over her chest.

“I don’t…I don’t do that anymore.” The saliva forming in her mouth interfering with her words as she spoke, “Please, just…leave. Go!”

“Alright,” Fenril could hear the scrape of the girl’s own chair as she left the table. “I don’t want to make this unpleasant for you. I’ll come back tomorrow, and see if you’re ready then.”

Fenril didn’t turn around until she heard the door shut. As she relaxed her arms, preparing to shuffle off back into bed, something caught her eye. A scrap of paper lay on the floor near the table; it must have fallen out of the girl’s cloak as she righted her clothes.

Although the handwriting was full of jagged lines and dried blotches, it was clear at first glance that it was letter.

After retrieving it, Fenril made her way back to the night table, swirling around the contents of the drawer like a master chef making stirring a soup of effluvia, until she came up with her glasses. Blinking past the scratches in the glass, she began to read:

_My Dearest Rose,_

_As you no doubt know, I am very ill. There is much I wish to tell you, but much of it you already know._

_I leave everything to you. Please take care of yourself. The house is too big for you alone, I hope that you find yourself someone to share with._

_I love you, my Rose._

_-Granny Scarlet_

* * *

 

Rose returned the next morning, and the next, always knocking, always with the same horrific offer on her lips. She was always turned away. No matter what offers and promises Rose spoke of, the wolf kept her door locked firmly shut.

“Why?” Fenril asked one day. She had never been of the mind to have patience for repetition.

It was a simple enough question, muffled through the cabin door, though it caused Rose to go silent in her pleas to be let in.

Fenril knew the girl hadn’t left; she could feel her there, feel the red burning through the door.

“…I’ll tell you if you let me in.”

It had been a cruel question, Fenril thought, as she slid the bolt from it’s slot. She could damn well guess ‘why’. Did she only just want to hear it from the girl herself, or had she merely been unable to think of anything better to say, too much time spent alone beginning to addle her brain?

Rose opened the unlocked door on her own, not waiting to be invited inside.

Again, the cloak was pulled up over her hair, obscuring her face as she held one arm, massaging it for comfort. “The letter…it wasn’t in my pocket when I got home. There’s no one else at home now, you know. Taking care of Grandmother, it…it gave me a purpose…”

“And now you think that my eating you will give you one final purpose.”

Rose was silent as Fenril pulled out a kitchen chair, perching on the edge.

“You’ve come by here every day since I’ve moved in, you saddle me with this unreasonable demand, but you’ve never even bothered to ask me anything about myself. Don’t you want to know just who’s life it is that your flesh would be fueling?”

Rose lowered her hood; Fenril took it as a sign of interest.

“My mate was killed by the family of a girl we ate, then a few weeks later I moved out here to get away from everything. It’s cliché… I know it is. Talk to any wolf, and you’ll get the same damn story, and if you don’t they’re lying... Still, here we are.”

Fenril’s muscles stiffened as Rose took a step forward.

“Please…Please!” the girl shouted, fists balled. “I don’t know what else to do! I have no value to anyone as I am now!”

The wolf was upon her then, a snarl, and hot breath on her neck as she lie upon the latch-hooked rug, the fibers of a rough yarn butterfly pressed into her cheek. Blood trickled onto the collar of the girl’s crisp blouse.

Fenril licked her lips. “There, are you happy now? Is that what you wanted?”

Rose only blinked up at her, dark eyes wide, as she touched her finger tips to the bite on her neck, coloring them the same as her cloak.

“Look, I don’t have an extra room here, things are tight- even with just me- but I…I really enjoyed that meal you made the other day. If you want, you can stay here. Sell your other house, burn it down and dance on the ashes, I don’t care. As long as you can cook for me in payment- Animal meat, I mean. I swear to the Moon Mother, if you lop off an arm and serve it to me-“

She was quieted by soft lips upon her own, colored even redder by her own blood on the lips of the wolf. Stained fingers clung to the collar of Fenril’s simple dress.

“Thank you, Miss Wolf!”

* * *

 

And so, as the days went on, the neighbors noticed that more and more red flowers bloomed all around the tiny cabin, just as delicious smells blossomed from the chimney at each and every meal time, and at night- more often than not- snarls, followed by shrieks of delight could be heard through the bedroom window.

The wolf and the girl in red lived happily ever after.

 

_The end._

 

 


End file.
